A friend calls me and says “Dedoyin, you know it would be nice if you had a newsletter? You write from your heart and seem to be able to bend words to do your bidding”… my typical response? “Errr… not yet. This isn’t the right time”. The natural follow up question is when is the right time?.. This is where I absentmindedly scratch the back of my neck, hoping I can will the question away without having to offer a response that I apparently don’t have.
Oftentimes I choose to live in denial of the one major fact that needs to be addressed; My perfectionist tendencies. In my mind’s eye, I’ve got this ideal picture of how I’d love a project or event to pan out, and embarking on that project before everything is ready and in-place, would be absolutely unthinkable.
So I find myself reluctant to start new things, to launch out, to put myself out there. Each time I do it, there are a million and one dissenting voices in my head yelling their heads off, telling me “it’s not perfect yet! Hold on! Not now! This would be so embarrassing! You’re not yet prepared!…”
Just before I announced this newsletter, I sat down and had a heart-to-heart with the voices in my head. “Why are you guys screaming so loud? What’s the issue?” I calmly asked. They must’ve appointed a representative and here’s her response. “We’re afraid on your behalf”.
Therein lay the answer! Anxiety… fear of botching things up. The question is why it matters if I botch things up or not. It matters because subconsciously, our hearts crave validation and for every single time someone made us feel we’re not good enough, the audacity to go all out and do what needs to be done, whether we make mistakes or not, dies. So we’re careful. We just can’t stand anything going wrong. The inherent struggle of every perfectionist is actually premised on the basis of ANXIETY.
As I sit there, quietly weighing the issue, I come up with a perfect response for the Voices in my head. “WHY NOT?”… who said it had to be perfect? What’s wrong with learning on the job? What’s the big deal in failing forward?” They stare at me with their large beady eyes. Fright written all over their faceless faces. Yep exactly. There’s nothing wrong with it. So you would all keep quiet and stop holding me back. Understood?!!” *crickets*
Hmmn. Silence. That works too. End of conference. Next day, I announce newsletter. I feel their anxiety, the words of caution they want to spill, but they stay quiet. Sometimes, the best recipe for trauma induced anxiety is an assertive clap-back to the voices in our heads, holding us back from taking little steps forward.
Here’s to doing new things afraid, launching out and shutting down perfectionist voices🥂
‘Dedoyin
Beautifully articulated!